WILMINGTON– The Deerfield Valley Rescue is hosting an open house at 34 Route 100 South this Saturday, July 13, from 10 am until 3 pm. This is a great opportunity for area residents to come to the station to meet the crew, learn CPR, tour ambulances, enjoy free refreshments, learn how to administer first aid, and much more.

“Our open house is designed to give the public insight into our services as an ambulance service, including not only what happens when someone calls 911, but also other services like child safety seat checks, CPR training, and blood pressure checks,” said Heidi Taylor, DVR’s Business Administrator.

“We also hope to attract new members – volunteers who are willing to go above and beyond for their community,” said Taylor. “We provide free training to our members so that they can serve the community in an extremely valuable and rewarding way.”

Another move to attract new members and get the word out on the emergency and other services they provide is the recent relaunch of their website – www.dvrescue.org.

As a nonprofit organization in a flood-impacted community, DVR was able to get free digital advising from the Vermont Digital Economy Project. Rob Fish, the nonprofit advisor for the project, worked with Deerfield Valley Rescue staff on their social media strategy and on important upgrades to the organization’s website.

“The upgrades were provided for free by volunteer coders as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking, an event organized locally by Code4BTV.org. The new website integrates social media, updated information on the service area, the ability to accept online donations, and emergency aid tools, such as first aid skills, CPR classes, and heart attack and stroke awareness,” said Rob Fish.

“Upgrading our media presence and website are particularly important for us, because we recently dramatically grew our service territory beyond our traditional towns of Wilmington, Dover, Somerset, Searsburg, and portions of Marlboro and Stratton, by adding the towns of Whitingham and Halifax, as well,” said Bobby Maynard, a fulltime employee and training officer at DVR. “We now serve around 250 square miles.”

For more information contact Taylor at heidi@dvrescue.org or (802) 464-5557.